The present invention relates to an image-pickup apparatus capable of at least one of tilt imaging and pan imaging.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H08(1996)-292357 has disclosed an image-pickup apparatus which has a mechanism for rotating a lens barrel including an image-pickup element in a tilting direction and a panning direction.
In the image-pickup apparatus, the lens barrel is mounted on a support mechanism rotatably in the tilting direction, and an actuator placed between the support mechanism and the lens barrel drives the lens barrel in the tilting direction relative to the support mechanism. This allows tilt imaging. In addition, the entire support mechanism can be driven by another actuator in the panning direction to allow panning imaging.
In the image-pickup apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H08(1996)-292357, however, the actuators for driving the lens barrel in the tilting direction and the panning direction are placed outside the lens barrel. For this reason, separate spaces are needed to dispose the lens barrel, the actuators, and the support mechanism, leading to an increased size of the image-pickup apparatus.